in autumn, everything darkens,
cuts away from bark and drops
until
in winter, ice
like glass holds back goods
and then
in spring, to step away and
keep us warm by poking green, busy bee,
and then
in summer, touch
and step through glass and action, cut
to warm flowers and holding hands
until
how I can be amazed by family
and how we grow apart day by day.
But now we’re together like a pause between breaths, like branches
touching in a breeze and thrilled to meet,
but then again reaching away, longing
for light. And how I carry an old fruitless cargo;
a seed of me wrapped in bark, called ‘experience’.
How can I affirm to know the seed
of anything? Because no rock is ultimately
stable, no term the right term. But words
and ego bubble out of me, congealed,
not nascent, and un-alive; having no
claim to light this moment by living soft
like butter; not hard like a knife.
How metaphors fail! No words can catch
a fire, hiss of inner anger hours
after my ‘teaching’ occurs. Insensitive,
ignoring a poetry of parenthood,
like trust looking out through running windows
onto self. And now my anger burns
and how a real connection quells, no doubt.
His first connection to morning light is all around.
And he sits amongst fluffy pillows, talks
loudly to his knitted toys and friends,
trousers, socks, jumpers before father
mother, brother, or magical other enter
and yet another perfect day begins. No need
to read a newspaper, wear a diamond ring.
His mission now? Look up and sparkle, smile.
The leaves are shuttling down today
like plunging into bed at night:
though most are dropping, some hold up
a celebration of their fall.
Is it that trees are facing death
by dropping limbs? No. They re-birth
within a circle’s trick of growth
expanding out a ring each year.
But now a wooden tree stands forth
against a blue November sky.
Time to grow, remember why:
death is birth, is death, is birth.
